Thursday, October 29, 2009

Thank You Cash for Clunkers

Motor vehicles added a whopping 1.66% of the 3.5% growth in Q3 GDP. More specifically, motor vehicle output was up... wait for it... 157.6% on an annualized basis.



Source: BEA

6 comments:

dblwyo said...

Taking all three of the last posts together as a set - excellent. A suggestion?
Stimulus spending was the answer but take a look at Inventories. Did rather well. Be interesting to see what I:S ratio does and did too. Bet it's still going down.
The obvious question is what happens when it fades of course.

Jake said...

To summarize:

1) We have stimulus
2) We have inventory restocking
3) Do we have REAL private demand (i.e. non-subsidized)?

Unfortunately, I don't think we'll find out til Q1 '10

dblwyo said...

No argument whatsoever. Within that context the question then becomes how big was the inventory re-build? Which might be approachable via our earlier discussion on looking at the historical Inventory:Sales ratio.

Steve Myers said...

Exactly. However, consider the cost of the program as published by edmunds.com and it is even worst. For my take on today's numbers click on my name.

Ritholtz said...

Clusterstock ripped you off:

CHART OF THE DAY: Cash-For-Clunkers MASSIVELY Distorted GDP
http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-motor-vehicle-output-2009-10

Jake said...

Thanks for the heads up Barry...

ShareThis